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Showerthoughts_Mod t1_jacuerq wrote

This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.

Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"

(For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, please read this page.)

Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.

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draypresct t1_jacvmeb wrote

The universe isn't infinite, and that's not what infinity means.

The sequence 0.10110111011110111110... is infinite but it is also non-repeating. The "0110" sequence only occurs once during the entire sequence.

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PillowHand187 OP t1_jacwxmd wrote

you are probably right but the definition of infinite is limitless or endless and that's what I was referring to. No you do not know for sure if or if not the universe is infinite if you do please enlighten us and show us your Nobel peace prize because this would be new to the scientific community.

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AxialGem t1_jacxd29 wrote

This touches on something called the Poincaré recurrence theorem but afaik there is no requirement for the universe to be infinitely large. If you randomly shuffle a deck of cards long enough you can expect it to return to a previous state. But there are only 52 cards in a deck, not infinitely many.

Also afaik it is not known if the universe is infinite or not of course

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jmpires t1_jacxjh3 wrote

I think it is quite te opposite. The smaller the system, the more likely it is for a given state to repeat itself.

I think the Poincare recurrence time for the whole universe is 10^ 10^ 240 years

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Croceyes2 t1_jad31pk wrote

That's actually quite the opposite of what it means. It could happen, but being infinite means it doesn't have to

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AxialGem t1_jad3adl wrote

Yea, it's a nice one to think about right? Because if things really are shuffling randomly, then way before the universe randomly resets, you can expect lots of weird things like: by pure chance a perfect copy of your brain at this exact moment comes into existence, complete with all your memories until this point, just brought together by chance in the otherwise chaotic vacuum of space.

Isaac Arthur has good discussion of this kind of sci-fi and futurism. I recommend his channel in general but here is an older video of his dealing with these kind of infinite improbability issues haha. Check it out if you're interested

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Trips-Over-Tail t1_jadik45 wrote

Inflation and heat death would seem to preclude this. The universe might have infinite time, but the era of the universe in which work can be achieved or that atoms can exist is not infinite.

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Torewin t1_jadlvs1 wrote

That’s not entirely true. Given enough repeating, eventually, it’ll repeat the sequence. It’ll take an infinite amount of time, and due to the nature of infinity, time may end before that happens considering time isn’t infinite or the sequence may not have the potential to continue infinitely, then it may never repeat.

For example, if you accept the theory that the universe will all be husks of iron at one point, that will end your possibility, that sequence, of it repeating.

Life ceasing to exist and having 0% chance to come back will result in 0% chance for anything regarding life to happen regardless of time or space.

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draypresct t1_jadmva5 wrote

No. The sequence is non-repeating. Every set of “111…” has one more “1” than the preceding one. You will never see “0110” again in this sequence after position 5.

Similarly, there is no guarantee that the universe (infinite or not) is repeating.

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AxialGem t1_jadzq1x wrote

Oh yea absolutely nobody is doing that lol And considering 52! Is already an unimaginably vast number, think about all the particles in the universe... it's gotta be like almost over a thousand combinations all in all :p

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Torewin t1_jae3a6w wrote

But you said that you’ll never have the sequence the same.

Which would imply 010101 and 0101010 is not repeating. It’s a brand new sequence. The same way as 11111001000011100010010101 in your original comment is suggested to not be repeating.

If 01010101 is repeating then the original sequence, given any 1-2 numbers when there are only two numbers present, will be a repeating value. I see multiple 01’s in the original sequence and multiple 0010 and so on. To say that there’s an additional digit and this it’s not repeating would also be the same for 0101010101.

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Umpteenth_zebra t1_jae4bjs wrote

Actually there's this cool concept about quantum randomness creating something from nothing. So there could be an infinite number of universes spontaneously appear in an otherwise maximum entropy environment. Try searching for boltzman brains.

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MoobyTheGoldenSock t1_jaeoifq wrote

Not necessarily. There are infinite universes in which the monkey simply types, "aaaaa..." forever.

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Shoe_mocker t1_jaergdh wrote

Nope, cosmic inflation and the nature of entropy ensures that this will definitely not happen. There is a constant amount of matter/energy in the universe, and the space in which it is confined is growing. What this means is that as time progresses, things will gradually drift apart, never to interact with each other again for eternity

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the_random_walk t1_jaf47ax wrote

And these guys blocked my post about people who eat gourmet burgers….

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